Gordon in the morning: Kasabian are packing

A couple of paragraphs about what Kasabian eat on tour. It might make something to pad out a fanzine, if it was a very large one. Or - if you're Gordon - it's a news story:

Serge Pizzorno said: "We've got Uncle Ben's fried rice, stir-fried rice, noodles and baked beans. It's like a tuck shop.

"It's 2am, we're starving, so we'll knock on Marty, our security guy's door and he just goes 'Come in' and you sit around the microwave. It's pretty special."

Mmm. That is so interesting.

Gordon in the morning: Kasabian have some thinkings about 9/11

I suppose a band who cheerily use a killer's name as their brand will always have a different approach to death than other people, but Kasabian's use of September 11th as a promotional tool is a bit sickening, even by their standards. To be fair, the link is as much down to Gordon Smart as the band, as their Sun interview hammers home some sort of link to explain why the band might be playing a rooftop gig in New York on September 11th this year:

KASABIAN will play a poignant gig in New York — on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. And the timing of the show has made the Leicester lads think about how their lives have changed since that horrendous day in 2001.

Yes, Gordon and the boys are really just using the murder of 3,000 people as a staging post on their journey from unknown plod-rockers to fairly well known plod-rockers:

At the time the Twin Towers came down Tom and chief songwriter Serge Pizzorno were "grafting" for a living in Leicester. Serge helped out in his dad's garage and Tom drilled holes at a metalwork factory. Guitarist Serge says: "I was just helping out my old man, collecting parts and doing MOTs. Tom was working in fabrications, drilling. He used to come home black, man. He was so dirty. It used to take him 20 minutes to have a wash. blahblahblah hard work blahblahblah sweat of honest toil blahblah

Ah, yes. Tom was doing manual labour at the time. That kind of puts the collapse of the Twin Towers into some sort of perspective, right. But what about the attacks themselves? Surely the band must have something to say about those? If only to justify Gordon using them as background colour for yet another Kasabian interview?

Tom Meighan says: "It will be strange for us playing in the city on such a big weekend for New York people. It will be emotional. "I was at work and remember hearing 9/11 unfold on the radio. I remember going home and being in absolute shock. My mum had it on the news. It was f***ing awful."

"My mum had it on the news" doesn't really suggest much of an interest from Tom, does it? Still, "fucking awful" at least comes closer to capturing the horror than his colleague's reaction:

Serge adds: "Looking back to 9/11, I was at work. I went round Tom's on my way home. I'd always go in for a tea and I was sat watching it with his mum when Tom came home from work. "We were watching it in his front room. We were like everyone, thinking it was just mental."

"It was just mental". Why isn't this man regularly invited onto Newsnight to share his insights? "We watched it on the news. I remember, because the news was on and we looked at the pictures and listened to the words and that was what was happening", the pair continued. "Ten years on, it certainly remains something we saw happen on the news.

Kasabian: We're not lads, honest

You know what annoys lad rockers Kasabian? It's when people call them lad rock:

Guitarist Serge Pizzorno said: "In some ways it's helped because people put you in a box and then when you don't fit in that box anymore it confuses the hell out of them.

"If you do go wild, people say 'Wow, I wasn't expecting those boys to do anything like that'.

What's great about the last record was that all the people that said it was lad rock looked silly.
"And I think finally people are going, 'OK, I got it wrong.'"

Oh, yes...

I can't think why anyone would confuse Kasabian with a boorish bunch of blonging lads.

Kasabian have made their choice

And they didn't flip a coin:

Kasabian star Serge Pizzorno stopped taking drugs so the band would only be remembered for their music.

Obviously, nice to kick the drucks and be clean, so any reason is better than nothing, but did it not occur to Serge that the way to be remembered for your music is to make memorable music? After all, Kurt Cobain did quite a lot of drugs, but Nirvana's music is recalled for its own merits. Never once has this conversation happened:

- Remember that Kurt Cobain?
- Yeah... boy, how much heroin and diazepam did that guy do?
- Wasn't he famous for something else?
- Oh... um... yeah...
- Boxing? Was it boxing?
- Maybe. Doesn't sound right.
- He knew Everett True. Was that it?
- Oh, yeah. That's it.

Still, Kasabian aren't doing drugs any more. For their art:

He said: "We were absolutely crazy. Because you don't know how long it's gonna last and you don't give a f**k about anything. You do an album and you think this is gonna be it so let's just enjoy it. Tomorrow didn't matter. We lived at 100 miles an hour.

"But I just got bored. For me, the most important thing is the art, the music and the things we leave behind. If your music starts to suffer, then it's not worth it."

Presumably the drugs are still working their way out of the band's system, and once they're gone, we'll start seeing what their music sounds like when it's not suffering. Any day now, I'm sure.

Gordon in the morning: Cartoon characters

Kasabian have, naturally, got an orchestra on the new record - they're at the point in their career where sales are high and ideas low, so shelling out for an orchestra is an obvious thing to do.

But since it's clear Kasabian's grasp of music is very lmited, how could they communicate what they wanted?

The obvious thing would have been to play Whatever by Oasis and say 'something like that', but instead, the band used film soundtracks as a reference point.

I say "film soundtracks":

Serge said: "I just explained what I wanted in basic terms like, 'You know the bit in Tom and Jerry where Jerry plays Tom's whiskers? - that sound', and she'd go, 'Ah, it's pizzicato!' and we'd get through it like that."

There has been some worries from cartoon cats that association with Kasabian might make their trade look a little childish.

It's like Kasabian can see the future

Listen to mystic Serge:

Kasabian feel it is inevitable that they will become "shit".

The 'Empire' rockers are about to release their fourth album, and while they feel it will be a "classic", the band don't think they'll be able to make albums of the same quality forever.

Guitarist Serge Pizzorno said: "It's to do with being on a roll. Everyone at some point goes shit it's inevitable. It's about getting it down as quickly as you can, because it won't last.

Of course, this prediction would have been a bit more impressive had he made it at the start of first rehearsal. It's a bit like saying Pour Moi will win the Derby one day.

Still, Serge is nothing if not realistic in acknowledging the potential of Kasabian to be shit. Actually, I say "realistic"...

"It happens to the great writers of all time at some point."

... but he does seem to be convinced there are some sort of great writers involved in this story.

Kasabian have named their songs. One sounds like it should have a Happy Meal toy.

When did we start having to pretend to be excited at the announcement of the names of songs which are going to be on an album?

A veritable street party today, with the announcement of the song titles on the next Kasabian album:

Switchblade Smile
Neon Noon
Goodbye Kiss
I Hear Voices
Shelter From The Storm
Velociraptor

I literally cannot wait to hear what songs might be sitting under such inspired titles. Literally cannot wait. So I've just played the same leaden-plod-rock track Kasabian always make once and pretended it's called Velociraptor.

Kasabian, of course, are very excited about their new album:

Guitarist Serge Pizzorno said of the album: "Listening to the songs makes you feel great. Get your fucking jacket on, whack your fucking shoes on. It makes you believe things are going to happen."

A song so great it makes you want to put your shoes on, eh?

To be fair to Serge, Kasabian songs do often make me put my coat on, as I'll generally leave anywhere when they start playing.

Gordon in the morning: Grunt and grapple

Tom from Kasabian has taken a part in a sitcom.

I know what you're thinking: a remake of Terry And June is long overdue, but this doesn't sound like it's going to be as good as that. Walk Like A Panther, set in 1970s wrestling world and - according to the NME :

He'll play a mentally-deranged doorman in the '70s-set comedy, Walk Like A Panther, with TV chef Marco Pierre White set for a cameo. There are rumours that Noel Gallagher may pop up on screen somewhere.

Where would they find someone foolish enough to invest in that creaking set-up?

The whole scenario sounds like an idea first chopped up on Serge Pizzorno's coffee table at 3am. Which is probably pretty much the measure of how it came about – Serge has bankrolled the whole thing.

Oh.

It's written by Dan Cadan, which the NME thinks is a guarantee of quality:

the full line-up reveals that things could be a far more promising affair – the script has been written by Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels writer Dan Cadan

Oddly, IMDB does agree that Cadan has a credit on Lock Stock - but as "runner". By the time of Snatch, he was up to "assistant: Mr Ritchie". His writing credits prior to Panther runs to three movies - a rhyming tale about the devil, TV Movie Dancestar USA - which had Yoko Ono drift by - and Filth And Wisdom. He co-wrote that with Madonna. I'd totally forgotten "Madonna's directorial debut" even though I wrote about it at the time. More than once.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes, Tom Kasabian's new acting role in a sitcom written by the runner from Lock, Stock. Apparently Tom found it challenging. He told Q, and Gordon has copied it out, and now we'll copy it too:

"I loved it but I was s****ing myself first of all. When I was driving on set I was thinking, 'F*** f*** f***'. It was more nerve-racking than playing Glastonbury."

To be fair to Tom, doing something you might not be very good at in front of a crowd of people can be very nerve-wracking. So Glastonbury must be pretty scary.

But, fair play to the man, he does have a good gag up his sleeve:

"Kasabian and the music comes first. Having said that, if someone said they were remaking Labyrinth I'd be quite up for playing the part of the Goblin King."

See if Serge'll put his hands in his pockets, Tom.

FA attempt to liven-up third round draw; fails

I'm sure the decision to get two pop singers in to do the third round FA Cup draw yesterday was driven purely by the question of how to make a dull event more interesting, and was In No Way a bid to try and create a circus that would draw attention from the FA's global overlords, FIFA, getting outed on Panorama.

Trouble is, had Serge Pizzorno and Noel Gallagher not drawn their own teams against each other, it's unlikely anybody would even have noticed the shallwesayglitzy showbusiness event.

Serge and Noel. As off-putting a pairing for the FA as the Duke Of Kent and The Duke's Wife of Kent were, albeit for slightly different reasons.

Gordon in the morning: Pink and Black

It's probably too late to hope that the way pregnant women are infantalised by the tabloids will stop - all that talk of "bumps" - but as ever, Gordon has raised the bar in the wrong direction. Talking about Pink:

And it's great to see that she's Keith Cheggers with her first child, showing off the bump in a bikini.

Keith Cheggers? I've heard of cockney rhyming slang, but don't think I've come across cock rhyming slang before.

The lead on Bizarre, though, is some incoherent complaint from Serge out of Kasabian that footballers aren't 1970s rock stars. No, really:

Serge said: "These boys can claim the money but they can't claim the attitude just yet. Footballers have definitely got rock stars' money now, but I couldn't name you one that's got any claim on spirit.

"Andy Carroll has the hair and he definitely likes a drink. He kind of looks a bit BLACK SABBATH."

What does this actually mean? The normal assumption would be that an athlete probably would raise less hell than a rock musician, what with being reliant on their athleticism and all - but even that's not true, is it? Pizzorno really thinks that the "attitude" he looks for isn't present in the likes of Cole and Rooney? They're every bit as childishly behaved as any guitarist, surely? It's a bit like suggesting that bankers don't have the greed any more.

And while we're talking of Music Of Black Origin...

The other day, behind The Times' paywall, there was more attention given than strictly necessary to Keith Richard's memoirs, including a chance for other stars to say how great Keith is as a musician. (Why this was felt strictly required for a book that is mainly about how tiny Mick Jagger's penis is isn't clear.)

Amongst those lining up with opinions was Serge out of Kasabian:

"You play in open G tuning and it's instant Keith. and then of course you can't play it. For someone to own that sound is The holy Land as far as being a guitarist is concerned. And he always knows where to put the riff, where to put the note. He plays like a black man, with a machine gun rhythm, but he's white so it sounds different"

Black people play the guitar differently from white people, and even if white people do play in the same way as black people, they can't because of their skin pigmentation.

At best, Serge has created a modern version of "did you ever notice black people drive their cars like this... and white people drive like this" routines; at worst, it's right up there with "black people have natural rhythm" as lazy, quasi-racist gibberish.

As Michael M, who pointed me in the direction of Pizzorno's pensées says:

These is no essential difference to the musical abilities of white or black musicians, it's all cultural. Given that for the last 4 or 5 decades black and white musical culture has become increasingly merged his statement is at best an outdated nonsense.

Although, really, the idea of someone from Kasabian producing "outdated nonsense" shouldn't really be that surprising.

Gordon in the morning: After birth

Serge out of Kasabian has become a father:

Serge has a little Kasabairn

Doesn't quite work, does it? A Kasbabyian, surely?

There's not much to say about 'man's partner gives birth', but Gordon never lets a chance go by to remind us that he's big showbiz pals with Kasabian who are his pals and he knows them and everything.

If only the nipper had arrived a couple of weeks ago, when Serge was up with his girlfriend for T In The Park - then Ennio would have qualified as Scottish.

Um... and?

In 2030 the national team could do with a strike partner for my No9 - little JIMMY SMART.

Yes. There was nothing tenuous about that reference.

Gordon in the morning: Sex And The City was a newspaper column once

To be fair, it's not Gordon's handiwork, but it's leading Bizarre this morning: Coverage of the Sex And The City 2 premiere. The headline?

Sex 'n the totty

Totty? Are you serious? Are we only minutes away from 'bint' turning up in headlines?

Gordon, meanwhile, is suffering from a shock:

KASABIAN'S SERGE PIZZORNO has followed in the footsteps of bandmate TOM MEIGHAN and chopped off his locks.

The crop-topped guitarist showed off his new style at last night's Black Ball, thrown by ALICIA KEYS, to raise funds for her HIV children's charity.

The new hairdo is a shock, but I'm sure we'll get used to it.

What a pity the SATC premiere clashed with the 'man gets haircut' - a busy news day indeed.

Serge and the lads did a cracking set with Alicia after a fancy beef dinner.

"A fancy beef dinner"? What? "Oooh, look, horseradish sauce."

Kasabian set their sights a little too high

Inspiration is always a good thing. Nice to have something to aim for. And so why should we all react with stifled giggles when NME announces where Kasabian's ambitions lay?

Kasabian have said their next album will draw on Nirvana and Pink Floyd as influences.

Apparently Serge has had a go at that RockStar game thingy and reckons that he's mastered the Cobain bloke doing the Bon Jovi song, so they're all set.

Seriously: Pink Floyd and Nirvana? Come on, you're struggling with sounding a bit like a Hard Fi tribute act. Ambition is great, but let's be a bit realistic.

"Sergio Pizzorno has got a body of songs that are sounding great," frontman Tom Meighan told BBC 6Music. "There’s one that sounds like Nirvana, which is really grungy, a big riff."

And... the Pink Floyd "influence"?

"It’s nothing like what we’ve done on this record, it’s really old school grunge. There’s a lot of Pink Floyd, 'Dark Side Of The Moon', piano-based songs at the minute."

Note the cautious use of the phrase "at the minute", as if aware that a back door must be left ajar to allow an embarrassed 'well, we took all of them off in the end' should the collective ear of the nation hear the record and say "wasn't there meant to be some Pink Floyd going on here? Because all I can hear is Keane?"

Kasabian: I am not a camera

Talking of Kasabian, there's an almost heartbreaking quote in the current NME where Serge is talking about the paparazzi:

I went out in London the other night and I went into a bar and I was with some people and they walked out and there was a fucking crowd of paparazzi. I walked out behind and not one snapped me. I was like 'still got it'.

Oh, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel a little pang - "nah, nah, I'm glad all my mates had their photos uploaded to OK the minute they emerged from the doors and that when I walked out every photographer looked the other way. It's brilliant. It's like my special super power that nobody's interested in me at all. Really. I'm like the Invisible Man. Or WonderWhoYouAre Woman...

Gordon in the morning: This is what his dreams are like

If this story featured a woman - any woman - wearing a bikini top, Gordon Smart would have exploded:

GUY RITCHIE has set his sights on rock lords KASABIAN to provide music for his next film.

The RocknRolla director has invited guitarist SERGE PIZZORNO to join him for a cheeky single malt to discuss the idea.

It will come as no surprise to seasoned Gordon-watchers that "cheeky single malt" is not the most ill-placed, hackneyed phrase in the piece.

I bumped into the new GQ Film Director Of The Year at London's trendy Groucho Club.

That would be the most ill-place, hackneyed phrase right there.

Oh, and just to make it the perfect Gordon story, the "invite" turns out to be not quite an invite:

Guy told me [...] "I'd love to meet up with the band. The music on the latest album is like a film soundtrack. He's a talented bloke, Serge."

Coming from someone who made Snatch, that's high praise indeed.

Gordon in the morning: Waiting at the gates for health updates

The nation holds its collective breath as news reaches Gordon that Kasabian are unwell:

KASABIAN have been rocked by a swine flu outbreak on tour.

Swine flu, eh?

Speaking from his Sydney hotel room, SERGE PIZZORNO said: "We're all sick as dogs, man. It's pretty terrible. It's a bit of a virus that we picked up in Japan."

So is it swine flu or "a bit of a virus"?

Gordon;s insistence that it's swine flu seems purely there to set up what I think is meant to be a punchline of some sort:

When the Rolling Stones were on tour during their pomp, they often came down with something similar - line flu.

I don't know what makes my head hurt more - the weak drug pun, or the desperate attempt to try and force Tom Meighan having the snuffles in to some sort of debauched rock history frame.

Elsewhere in Gordon's pages today: man catches bus.

Gordon in the morning: Meeting of minds

Exciting times for Gordon as Kasabian turn up to offer an interview. A long, long interview.

In which Serge makes a serious face and compares himself and his friends to Heath Ledger:

He explained: “I was writing Vlad and heath’s death just struck a chord.

“There are so many people out there who’ve got to a point when they need a bit of help to get to sleep.

“It could have been any number of people that I know. It was really sad. He was 28, just had this huge film where he stole the show, had his career ahead and life ahead of him and I just felt, I’ll see you on the other side, mate. He seemed a sweet guy.”

Kasabian, of course, are self-made men:

Tom explained: “Brits love an underdog. Critics sneered at us in the beginning but we did it all by ourselves.

“We toured so hard and worked our ar*es off. We got the following we deserved because of hard work."

I think you'll find the critics are still "sneering", Tom. If by sneering you mean "pointing out that Kasabian aren't very good".

You're on a major label, Tom. It's not like you're part of the DIY underground. To be fair, you did do a lot of work to get the deal, but since then, the large glossy adverts and the placing of your tunes on Top Gear and TV campaigns and big support slots don't suggest a campaign being run from a kitchen table in Leicestershire.

But it turns out that when he means by this is that 'Kasabian aren't famous because they went on TV':

"It’s not like Britain’s Got Talent. It’s a horrible show. SIMON COWELL’s all right, though — he just needs to get a better haircut!”

With Serge and Tom straining to puff themselves, Gordon has a hard time trying to keep up with the over-the-top praise. But he manages it:

Serge now has his career-defining collection of songs — all at the age of 28.
[...]
it hasn’t stopped Pizzorno penning an album that would grace any era in rock ’n’ roll...

I did wonder if this was Gordon slyly digging that the record sounds like it could be forty years old for all the invention and inspiration it shows, but... no, I guess he thinks that's a compliment.

Smart does take the chance for a little BPI style railing at the modern world:

A week before the album launched, a pal of Serge’s turned up at a gig and told him track two was his favourite.

It turned out the CD had been leaked and thousands of copies were turning up in schools and offices around the country, robbing Kasabian of cash.

The modern economics of the music industry don’t favour talented musicians.

"Robbing Kasabian of cash"? Really? And what do you mean by the "modern economics of the music industry don't favour talented musicians"? Are you suggesting they favour crappy musicians? Which is rather an odd way to conclude a piece about how successful Kasabian are and how well they're doing.

Gordon in the morning: Blow up

Jaw-dropping excitement from the Kasabian camp via Gordon this morning:

Serge: "Grenade could have blown us to pieces"

Bloody hell - did somebody toss a hand grenade at Kasabian, then?

Erm... not quite:

KASABIAN guitarist SERGE PIZZORNO has had a lucky escape from the most rock’n’roll death of all time.

Oh, yes?

The Leicester rock lord had the entire street evacuated around his new West London gaff after builders uncovered an unexploded wartime grenade in his back garden.

Oh. So it's not actually the "most rock and roll death", it's rather "a recreation of one of the weaker Coronation Street plots of the last couple of years", then.

Luckily for Serge — and his neighbours — bomb-disposal experts managed to diffuse the explosive before disaster struck.

Indeed. When was the last time someone was killed in the UK by a undiscovered wartime ordinance? Not, I suspect, since closer to the Second World War.

Talking of his close call, Serge said: “All it could have taken was the vibrations from a kickabout in the garden or some loud music and we would have been blown to pieces in a pile of rubble and smoke."

Although given it had been lying in the garden for sixty odd years and was only turned up by building work, it's more than likely that the grenade was happily buried. And may well have been past the point of exploding anyway - the army treat all of these cases as if they might be dangerous, but that doesn't mean they are.

Serge hints that this is his Cobain moment:

“I’m 27 as well and there’s a tradition of musicians meeting their end at my age."

Only the good ones, Serge.

But then comes the kicker:

"It’s all sorted now and we should be moving in there in a few weeks."

Move in? So you weren't even living there when the grenade was found? This, then, would be a near-death experience in the way a Ryanair airport is near where it says its flying to.

Paul Thompson finds space in Gordon's columns to report a shock:

Madge 'Hitler' jibe at McCain
By PAUL THOMPSON

Published: Today
MADONNA sparked a political furore yesterday — by comparing US presidential candidate JOHN McCAIN to ADOLF HITLER.

She sparked this furore "yesterday", did she, then? Not on, erm, Saturday, when she first flashed the pictures up?

Ah, but, no, because a Sun reader might wonder why, if she made the comparison on Saturday night, the paper didn't notice until Tuesday morning.

Segre spurned Moss. He says.

You're probably wondering, if Serge Pizzorno is, like, the embodiment of rock and roll, how come he's not a notch on Kate Moss' bedstead. Or wherever she keeps a track of the rock stars she has known?

Apparently, you know, he had the chance but was, like, too wasted to, uh, make the connection:

"Back at Glastonbury in 2005. We were all sat around a campfire and she invited me out for a drink there and then. "To be honest though, I was completely pissed, so nothing happened.

Serge also could have had that Britney, but she, uh, wouldn't be able to handle the pace, and that Amy Winehouse? Yeah, probably a lesbian anyway.